Tip of the Spear
by Voice of the Shadow
Summary: My take on the "tip of the spear" ending scene for Halo: Reach.


The teleportation spire's energy shield made a loud hissing noise, like the fury of a serpentine demon that lay vanquished before a noble knight in shining armor. NOBLE 6's armor wasn't exactly shiny, what with it being covered in 2 days' worth of dirt and dried sangheili blood, but the hyper-lethal super-soldier was nonetheless responsible for the deflector shield's failure. Six turned away from the console, holograms now flashing red, and stepped over the body of the general who'd tried to ambush him on his way in. The Spartan-III ran for the exit – one demon was dead, and now came the cleansing flame.

"Come on, come on!" Carter shouted form the falcon hovering nearby. Six poured on the speed, faltering slightly as his feet left metal and met only forcefield, but nonetheless sprinted off of the covenant construct and leapt the 10-foot gap. Jorge reached down and grabbed Six's arm with a grunt; the only Spartan-II on the team, Jorge (NOBLE 3) had no trouble at all pulling the entirety of Six's half-ton body up into the falcon.

"Pilot, get us outta here!" Carter shouted.

"Happy to oblige, NOBLE 1!" he responded. The falcon's rotors tilted forwards; NOBLE's vehicle slowly accelerated, and then rocketed forward as the jets attached to the back of the craft lit themselves and propelled them from the site. Over the roar of the engines, the pilot hazarded the question,

"Sir, do you think… do you think this could be it?"

"What you mean, pilot?" Jorge asked, accent heavy but not outright threatening.

"Do you… do you think this'll be where we turn the tide? Where we kick the covies before they can glass Reach?"

"The covenant's ruthless, pilot," Jorge responded. Six looked up, and could practically see the smile lines across the scarred Hungarian face. "But if Six can get the other twenty-three spires down as fast as this one and stop the flow of reinforcements, I just might think we gotta chance." The pilot gave a 'Hooah!' and pressed the engines harder; further and faster their Falcon flew.

"Save that for when the job's done," Carter reminded Jorge, and tapped the side of his sea-blue helmet, opening a comm to high command. Even as serious as NOBLE 1 always was, Six could hear the uncharacteristic happiness in his voice.

"Command, this is NOBLE leader. The spire's shield is down, and you are go for the shot! Have a nice day."

"Roger that," command answered back, "Good work, NOBLE. All ships be advised, the UNSC heavy frigate Grafton is inbound for the shot, and MAC rounds have been authorized."

"MAC rounds?!" Jorge said incredulously, even risking his handhold to make a gesture that matched his tone. "In atmosphere?!"

"One way to get their attention," Carter replied. "Hold on to your teeth, people!"

The 535 meter carrier, small by UNSC standards but still a hell of a sight to see screaming by at nearly 200 mph, swooped in for a low pass. Even at a distance like theirs, NOBLE's suits still activated the audio protection as Grafton's MAC cannon warmed up. A screech built to a shriek – and then a blinding flash as the entire ship lit up along its length. Grafton's main railgun hurled a ferric slug at .12% light speed into its target, and the covenant teleportation spire exploded into a billion shards of plasma and high-strength alloy.

"And THAT is how it's done!" Emile shouted over the radio from a half mile away. Jorge looked back at the spire's burning blue remains, and nodded in satisfaction. Grafton's engines powered up and started to lift it back to a safe distance; Jorge turned back to Six as the falcon headed to its next spire. The first one had EMP'd their craft and killed everyone but the SPARTANs aboard – they'd be more careful next time. By the end of the day, for the first time in humanity's long, bloody struggle with the Covenant, this invasion would be-

And then the wrath of God himself poured from the sky.

Grafton was lanced through with a beam of white energy; the entry point exploded with a thunderclap that shook the entire valley, while the searing beam of plasma burned straight through a thousand feet of solid steel and cut itself into the ground below, turning it into thick, black glass. Secondary explosions rocked the falling UNSC frigate as its engines broke free and detonated – the noise was like nothing that could ever be forgotten, and yet over it all… the sound that everyone who witnessed ground zero and lived to tell of it wasn't the shriek of steel, the roar of fire, but Auntie Dot's clipped, robotic voice, delivering four words that seemed to turn the world darker:

"New contact. High tonnage."

"No… no, no, somebody tell me this ain't happening!" Jorge shouted. He looked up to the sky in disbelief; Six looked as well. The SPARTAN-III had been singlehandedly destroying insurrectionist militia groups his entire life, had known every kind of fear and pain… but at the sight of what he beheld hanging over Reach, for the first time in his life, NOBLE 6 knew despair.

"UNSC Grafton, do you copy?" Command's voice crackled over the radio, signal fuzzy from the plasma beam's interference. "What is your status, over?"

"Grafton is DUST!" Carter shouted back. "We need to get out of here, NOW!"

The falcon they rode in with was one of only a fraction of craft that left the battlefield that day. All the others, every last UNSC frigate that had been deployed to combat the covenant, was one by one turned to glass and ash by the now-decloaked, 13 mile long covenant super-carrier in orbit over Reach. It was a losing game now… for every human on the planet, everyone who had tasted a moment of relief, a hope of victory… there was no joy. There were no cheers. Victory was now only measured by the number of ships that could flee intact.

But NOBLE team wasn't human. They were more – they were SPARTANs.


End file.
